Statement of intent — Matt starts a blog

Hi everyone,

OK… bad start… My ‘favourite’ right wing ghoul has a ‘rule’ that you should be precise in your language, so let’s try again.

Hi Mum, Neil and a couple of curious exes!

So what’s this? Why Medium? Are you finally succumbing to the gaping maw of madness that’s been threatening you for a while?

Well the answer is not no, but you’re missing the point. Basically, I looooooooove to write. I think it’s the purest form of expression that there is. I mean, you start with nothing but a thought. Right? Then a few words later you could have a narrative epic or a political thought that changes the word. Words can equally become a recipe for shakshuka, or a review of a meaningful piece of art, or the thing that makes you smile for the first (and maybe only) time that day. Words have power and can be anything.

Not to get too philosophical, but without words, we’re just animals.

So OK, Matt, we get that the philosophical possibility of words makes you slide off your chair in a way potentially only matched by mid 90s Gina G. But what are going to write?

Excellent question, rhetorical interlocutor! Honestly? No Idea… Not a clue.

I think it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s going to be a new home for my favourite Facebook mini-article series. If you’re unfamiliar or uninterested, the ones I can remember:

• Today in Work Adventures with Matt — A Leftist tries to understand and (potentially) enjoy being a slave to capitalism.
• Today in Autistic Adventures with Matt — A newly (self-) diagnosed autistic 33 year old wonders how to drive autism.
• Lost Classics — A lament to all of the pop bangers that time or context has made wholly unlistenable.
• Adventures of the Burnopfield Bros — Just listing funny stories of shit I do with my Mum’s dog, Ozzie.
• Fighting the Plague — A Camus-inspired series designed to fight right wing extremism through common decency
• Stupid Things I Noticed — I feel like this one does most of the leg work for you.
• Dadical Honesty — An unflinchingly honest take on fatherhood from a Dad trying his best.

But if those don’t sound like your thing, there’s new ideas rattling around the old noggin. One’s you can expect soon include:

• Kind Critique — Media review that leads with kindness, both for the artists and audiences.
• How my Pain Feels — An insight into life with constant chronic pain with the goal of increasing empathy and awareness and those other good things that are unmeasurable and un-monetiseable.

Do I have an upload schedule? No.

Do I have a plan? No. And my current understanding of neurodivergences does not suggest it would matter if I did. My plan for the current time is to be doing my laundry. But then I saw my notebook and started making a to do list for the day. Which I’m currently looking at. The last item on the list says ‘create a parenting YouTube channel’. Have I done that? What do you think? This isn’t one of those ‘rise and grind’ things. It’s vibes. And the vibe is pretty fucking changeable moment to moment.

Am I excited? Not really. My last therapist thinks this is a good idea.

Am I going to do it? We’ll see. If my Mum is right about my ADHD, then the odds are long for me persisting with anything… But I’d like to.

Why now? I found out that I was autistic in my 30s. I had never read anything by someone like me. I had to work it out alone. No-one (and this isn’t blame just facts) explained alexithymia to me, or what a meltdown is, or executive dysfunction.

Representation matters. And when I saw myself as a white, straight, cis male Oxford graduate, I was pretty fucking represented.

As a bi, poly, painfully lefty, autistic immigrant, I feel more excited about adding to that global conversation. Or asking questions of the global consensus.

Oh, and I like attention. Duh.

So let’s see what happens? Together? Might be fun?

Stay kind, lovelies. Write soon.